Mackenzie Allen Philips’ youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend.

Against his better judgement he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack’s world forever.

In a world where religion seems to grow increasingly irrelevant The Shack wrestles with the timeless question, “Where is God in a world so filed with unspeakable pain?” The answers Mack gets will astound you and perhaps transform you as much as it did him.

Making very effective and visual use of allegory, author John Bevere walks us through the horror of the upcoming judgments and shatters our belief systems, using scriptures that instantly cut to the heart of the matter, balancing (from the author's point of view) the oft-revisited and unbalanced themes of love and grace, and forcing the reader to re-evaluate his relationship with God; which is, of course, his intended purpose. Rarely has a book made such an impression on this reviewer's heart and mind, but in a very disturbing way. In fact, upon reading Driven by Eternity, she had to wonder--if this is so, how can anyone be saved? It brought back not-so-fond memories of the theology of works rather than that of salvation by faith. And though Author Bevere makes many good points regarding the believer's need to guard his heart and walk in obedience, repenting of sin and withholding nothing from his Lord, he makes it sound like all we have to do is 'just do it.' The reality, however, is that it is only in an intimate relationship with a loving God and through his power that we can make right decisions and walk in obedience in the first place. In fact, I believe this book could undermine the faith of those who are truly living for God, but are vulnerable, so it would be wise, while reading, to ask the Lord to reveal the truth.

California’s gold country, 1850. A time when men sold their souls for a bag of gold and women sold their bodies for a place to sleep. Angel expects nothing from men but betrayal. Sold into prostitution as a child, she survives by keeping her hatred alive. And what she hates most are the men who use her, leaving her empty and dead inside. Then she meets Michael Hosea. A man who seeks his Father’s heart in everything, Michael Hosea obeys God’s call to marry Angel and to love her unconditionally. Slowly, day by day, he defies Angel’s every bitter expectation until, despite her resistance her frozen heart begins to thaw. But with her unexpected softening come overwhelming feelings of unworthiness and fear. And so Angel runs. Back to the darkness, away from her husband’s pursuing love, terrified of the truth she can no longer deny: Her final healing must come from the One who loves her even more than Michael Hosea does…the One who will never let her go. A life-changing story of God’s unconditional, redemptive, all-consuming love.